Recently, it has become possible to generate electronic image data by a small device that is light in weight and portable (e.g. a mobile phone, a portable terminal, and a digital camera) and to send or receive the electronic image data by such a small device. Accordingly, there is a need for a method of outputting image data stored in such a small device onto a print sheet.
An example of a method of outputting image data to an output device is a printer driver, which is widely adopted in a PC (Personal Computer). However, a printer driver is not suitable for use in such a portable small device, because communication control by a printer driver is complex, and because different drivers are used in order to deal with different kinds of devices. Therefore, it is difficult for such a small device to directly print out (output) the image information therein by using an image forming apparatus, such as a printer.
In this regard, it is possible to adopt a method of sending the image data to another device and reading the image data by an electrophotographic process.
A specific example of such a device is an image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Publication for Unexamined Patent Application, No. 8868/1990 (Tokukaihei 2-8868; publication date: Jan. 12, 1990). In this image forming apparatus, a device, which has the image data to be printed out, forms the image data in a liquid crystal display device of the image forming apparatus. Then the image data is displayed, and read through a document reading window of the image forming apparatus for the electrophotographic process. In this way, the image data is printed out.
The image forming apparatus disclosed in the publication uses a liquid crystal display device (hereinafter liquid crystal panel) at the display section. In general, a glass substrate is used for a liquid crystal panel. Consequently, when the liquid crystal panel is placed on a document placement table of an image reading apparatus so that image information is read from the liquid crystal panel, for example, the liquid crystal panel touches a platen glass of the document placement table. This is problematic, because the platen glass may be damaged. If the platen glass is damaged, not only the image information displayed on the liquid crystal panel, but also image information recorded on, for example, a sheet of usually used paper, cannot be read normally. There is also a problem that the liquid crystal panel cannot be handled easily because the glass substrate is used for the liquid crystal panel.